We discuss in this interview:

• Amy’s journey from having constant pain while taking care of two kids to complete recovery
• Health issues while growing up as a child, antibiotics and their connection with RA onset
• Steroids – their effect on the microbiome
• RA Medications and their side effects – Plaquenil, Methotrexate (including injections) and Cimzia
• Breastfeeding with Rheumatoid Arthritis
• How the Paddison Program worked after Plaquenil had been ineffective
• Being hypersensitive and modifications that have helped
• Actionable tips and suggestions for a healthy diet
• Probiotics
• Oxalate and RA
• Exercise and sauna
• Calming methods

Clint – Don’t we love a good story? That’s what we’re going to hear today. More than just a story of the transformation of inflammatory arthritis. But today we have an episode that is going to be jam-packed full of actionable tips and suggestions and workarounds. We’re going to talk about all sorts of things today with our guest. We’re going to talk about detoxification methods, calming methods, how to become the best version of yourself right now, adjusting our attitude if our attitude isn’t optimal, and improving our sleep. We’re going to talk about GI mapping and we’re going to spend some time talking about histamine issues. My guest has been able to work around some problems with histamines and that’s going to be of interest to our audience. My guest is Amy, she’s from Ballarat and she’s ready and raring to go here. Great to have you with me, Amy.

Amy – Thanks Clint.

Clint – Let’s set the scene here. Have you got a sort of a short transformational statement you can give us to set the scene of what you’ve been able to achieve?

Amy – Yeah. Really quick one. I was in hell for about 3 years and I’d just had 2 babies. So I was in hell with 2 babies at home and I was breastfeeding. I have to get up to them during the night to breastfeed, and I had to really push myself to pick them up out of the cart. That’s just the starting point, and that’s 2am in the morning, let alone 9 a.m. and getting them dressed. And it was excruciating to change their nappy, to get clothes on, to lift them, to feed them. Everything was hell. Like I would get into the car, I would somehow manage to buckle them in because my hands were burning, my feet were burning and I couldn’t think, I was really tired, beyond tired, exhausted, I just had nothing. And then having level 10 pain was exhausting on top of that. I was medicated at this time, It did nothing. Now I get up and I can run 3K’s, I don’t have any pain, I can think I can kiss my kids, I can run after them, I can do pushups, planks, pull-ups, everything. But the main thing is how I can sit and I just feel free. It was hell on earth for 3 years and that felt like 25 years. So to come out of it threw a lot of work. I cry almost daily. I used to cry every day for how much pain I was in and how bad my life was. Now I cry, pretty much every day to how grateful and oh, my God, I can’t believe this is my life.

Clint – What has your rheumatologist said about your transformation?

Amy – Well. I was in the hospital system, the public system originally, and my bloods always were low. But that was because from day one I found you and stuck with your program just on the baseline, I couldn’t eat anything else because I’d burn. So bloods were always low, CRP would never measure was always below the five and this is monthly. ASL would fluctuate, but it was always low so they never could figure out why I was in pain. Because I was just trying because the medication was ineffective. So really they didn’t notice anything because on paper they didn’t seem to be much. But I mean, when I got my markers done, when they diagnosed me, they were sky-high markers for rheumatoid factor. So it’s really hard because if you go off an outside external medical view on the Bloods. Doesn’t look like that’s because I was eating quinoa and spinach.

Clint – So we don’t have that satisfaction of seeing the number come down from 56 which mine was down to 0.6. So we don’t have that level of satisfaction and therefore we don’t have that kind of like emoji shock face from the rheumatologist that we would like to see. But your life is obviously night and day compared to your quality of life. And these days in Australia we don’t tend to measure rheumatoid factor and anti-CCP antibodies in any kind of routine check-up. The reason we don’t do that in Australia with the public medical system, there’s two reasons. One, it’s they’re expensive tests I’m told, and so they say, CRP, ESR these are inexpensive tests. And number two is once you’re diagnosed, then the monitoring of the disease is normally done for people who aren’t like you, Amy. And normally done using CRP and secondarily through ESR. So you’re measuring the autoimmune potential that our rheumatoid factor and any CCP antibodies give us is pointless. I mean, we know you have the disease. It’s a diagnostic thing only. And then after that, normally those inflammatory markers are used in your case.

Amy – It’s interesting you say that because one doctor I was doing really bad. I mean, they would just say, take Nurofen, but I can’t take Nurofen due to what we’ll talk about. But one doctor actually measured my CRP, ESR answer, and also the rheumatoid factor. And it turns out it had gone up again, the rheumatoid factor. So anyway, I just wanted to check that in there.

Clint – Going up again, even when you felt as good as you did?

Amy – No, this was sorry in a time when I was doing particularly bad, so she measured again and it had gone from I think it started around 301. The second time she measured it, I was up to 370 or something.

Clint – Hmm. Okay. As a matter of interest, before we all dive into your back story in just a minute. For those people who are interested, we have seen normalisation of rheumatoid factor using this program, using the Paddison Program. It’s not that common, mine never normalised. I haven’t had it checked in years, but it wasn’t normalised at a blood test years ago when everything was ideal.

Amy – So interesting.

Clint – Yeah, but it’s also not alarming. So I forgot the statistic and I’m just going to pull the number out, but I think it’s something like 30% of people over the age of 65 have elevated rheumatoid factor, even if they do not have rheumatoid arthritis.

Amy – Okay.

Clint – It’s a big number, right? It’s a large number in the community and I got to get that number so I say that accurately each time, but it’s substantial. It tells us that Autoimmune potential within human race has increased. We are becoming more autoimmune sensitive and will that play out for that 30% develop into rheumatoid arthritis or a variant that probably not only a small percentage anyway. We’re getting too caught up in the excitement here. Let’s talk about your health issues growing up as a child, was there something that you can identify growing up that may have contributed because you’re only young?

Amy – Many things have happened where I’m just like, there was another thing that would have caused a leaky gut. But when I was a little girl, I used to get frequent and recurring urine infections and I’d no need to finish the antibiotics and I’d get it again. And I’ve since found out the length of why used to get them. So there’s one, and that’s a huge one. And my mum never, I’m not blaming you Mum but I was, I was not a breastfed baby. So, you know, there’s one. And then very soon I’m taking antibiotics as a teenager got really bad acne. I now understand the link with that and why that happened. But to fix that, I took Roaccutane, that’s another thing.

Clint – Welcome to the club, Amy. Of those, the vast masses of us in our rheumatoid arthritis community who took acne antibiotics, it is a life ruiner. And our children will never do it. It should never be done, in my view.

Amy – No. And unfortunately, it’s just putting out pathways that we just go to a doctor and rely all on what the doctor says. And it’s just there’s a reason why it’s happening and our bodies are individual. So we’re just going to and I know now why the acne is what was happening. And then I would get really, really, really bad asthma. One day I went for a run and I nearly died. Like I was so lucky my mum was home. My body was covered in hives, my eyes were slit shut and I couldn’t breathe. I was near on death anyway. My asthma was extremely bad and I was on the preventer since I was a young teen. So there’s another thing.

Clint – Are they steroids?

Amy – Yes.

Clint – All right. Okay. There are maybe some extra things you could have done bad, but you’ve been not breastfed at all. You’ve gotten repeated UTIs and taking antibiotics. And as a teenager, you took more antibiotics. And then you’re on a puff of the steroids, which we know the connection therebetween, you know, microbiome, health and so on. Yeah, you poor thing, Amy.

Amy – And then and then being an adult, making poor choices, I drank a lot, like. There we go.

Clint – Well, we’ve all been through that phase in our twenties. So when did RA come on? What were the symptoms? And how old were you?

Amy – Well, I wasn’t typical. Usually, women who get it on the onset of after birth it’s six weeks, but I was six months after. I just noticed because one night I picked that was Memphis that I was breastfeeding at the time. To get out of bed. I’m like, Oh my God, what is wrong with my feet? And then to make it over to the cot and try and lift him up. What is wrong with my hands? It was really weird. That was the start of figuring it out.

Clint – When you said you were looking after two kids, getting them in and out of the cot. Have you got twins?

Amy – So they’re 15, eight months apart. Sorry. But Charlie is still in a cot and Memphis is in another one.

Clint – Okay. Yeah. My sister and I are eight months apart as well. Okay. So. Right. So what did you do? You’ve been, discovered that you’ve got agony here having all these problems. Obviously, you’ve sought out information from the doctor. Right. You’ve started looking into this holistic side of things. Can you tell us what happened?

Amy – So. It was really kind of amazing. When I got my diagnosis, she called the hospital because she didn’t know what to do for me. So and the rheumatologist had a cancellation and called me to come in straight away. So on that same very day, I consulted with the rheumatologist, which is very rare. And because I was breastfeeding, we tried Plaquenil from day one, and I never had any relief from Plaquenil. I don’t know why I just, when something really bad hits to just try and look everywhere you can. And first I did the celery juice because of the medical medium. But then it didn’t really resonate with me because I needed a reason why I needed science, I needed to understand. I just kept researching and you came up. I don’t even remember who was YouTube or how or not. But as soon as you started talking and you said you had it, I just knew you had some great answers in there. So, I don’t know. I think it might have been ariund months to started with you and. Other than a few slip ups, which were just me going, Oh, the disease can’t be that bad. And then, yes, it’s that bad. Stuck to the Paddison Program. Think it’s around 3 years now.

Clint – 3 years. Okay.

Amy – All right. It’s taken a long time to get good.

Clint – Yes. But also, I’m excited because that means you’re a real, a veteran at this. You’re going to have a lot of real nuance information. And I mean, this is we’re going to be able to talk about some real nuts and bolts here, as opposed to sort of me telling you sort of things that are coming in the future. We can have a very advanced discussion. Okay. So now you were still on the Plaquenil at the time and then you’ve only just on month two, you’ve begun making all these changes. Let’s go through this. Let’s talk about what was working for you, what were limitations, and then you can lead into modifications that you had to make. So spend some time talking about that.

Amy – So I started on baseline and I. I never felt like I would finish a meal. It was never really the pain was never bad that I never felt energetic or I don’t know, it was like I was missing something. I just didn’t understand why this baseline, I would feel good after the fast. But as soon as I had the quinoa. And I mean, that was the baseline, I would just still burn. But I stuck with it, you do try and get adventurous. And when you get adventurous, you quickly learn how much better you were on the quinoa. Or even though you were reacting slightly to that, it was nowhere near as bad as eating outside the park.

Clint – Well, that’s well said. And the way I put it is that there is no food at all when you’re heavily inflamed that gives you no pain. There isn’t, except for not eating as you mentioned. But we can’t not eat forever, so we’re going to have to eat some food. And this is the most probable combination of low-inflammatory foods that I’ve ever found. And that seems to have helped a lot of people. And so, yes, if we didn’t eat, we’d do better. But we’re trying to come up with a sustainable, nutritionally complete calorie, adequate diet here. You’re absolutely right, it’s not going to create zero pain right off the bat. I did baseline alone for 12 months, 12 months, just because I found that it was the lowest inflammatory state. I didn’t even try and venture off it too much because I was in such agony prior that I didn’t want to mess with it. I just thought oh, no. So back to you, what did you do?

Amy – Well, life continued. I was so scared, you got little kids and no idea how else what else to do. Because I’m following your program, I was doing exercise daily. I bought an elliptical off the Facebook marketplace, and I use that sucker nearly every day. And even back then because I was still in so much pain the exercise wouldn’t really relieve me because I’d be more exhausted and then I got to chase after kids. One day we were traveling and I hadn’t had my quinoa yet and my feet, I was just present. You learn to really feel your body, which is a good thing and a bad thing sometimes but I didn’t hurt. I’m like what have I done differently today? And I hadn’t had my quinoa. So then I’m like, Right, I can cut that out and not be in pain. But now I’m just back to the salad, so what do I eat? That’s alright for two days. But what do I eat long-term? But we’re now talking nearly two and a half years later. Like, I had no idea what to do for so long would hurt me, too, so I didn’t know what to have now. And then on your podcast, you talked about resistant starch and cooling. Once your rice is cooled, then you eat it, and the resistant starch is really good for your gut health. Well, I don’t know why I decided to give Rice another go, but I did. And I did it cold, no pain. So then I knew I could have one grain without no pain as long as it was followed with salad, not kale.

Clint – Wonderful. I mean, that’s a great discovery.

Amy – I don’t know, It was just pure luck. I mean, it had been 2 1/2 years and just doing the same thing, knowing I was better off by being on the program, but not knowing what to do next.

Clint – There was another breakthrough for you. And the benefit, well, there’s falls in against of switching across to the rice and I don’t want to talk too much. We’ve got a lot to learn from you. But the rice is not as nutritionally dense, but it is more calorie-dense. So it serves a purpose in that sense. But especially if we’re talking about basmati rice, white rice, sushi rice. If we’re talking about brown rice, which I don’t expect you’re talking about if we’re talking about it is nutritious, It is nutritionally excellent. Well, that was a breakthrough, and it took you 2 1/2 years to work that out. Don’t be ashamed of that. I was putting a flax seed in green smoothies for six months or nearly maybe six months before I realized when I took that out, I had much less pain and just got my calories from other sources. Starch like we’re talking about, right? The pseudo-grains and rice. I also discovered after months that when I took olive oil off my salad, I felt infinitely better. And these things took me like combined I’m on these things together for a year. We’re all making these discoveries.

Amy – I did try and incorporate because I just see so much benefit in The good omega’s, like the flax, but even like always down to adding just a pinch and I mean the tiniest pinch into a smoothie and I would burn straight away. So for me, right now, it’s just not worth it. But eventually, yeah. Hopefully.

Clint – Yeah. You can look at that down the track. So that brings us fast forward to only six months ago, right?

Amy – No, that’s right.

Clint – What else did you learn? What other modifications did you make and discoveries?

Amy – Um. So for me, it’s also on par with the leafy greens. It’s also the things that are really good for lowering histamine, which is the causative sort of food. I don’t supplement it, I use the foods for that. But for me, for the rheumatoid and the histamine that’s happening, things like broccolini is amazing. As soon as I eat that, my body feels amazing. So it’s kale, but it’s got to be organic. My goodness I tried just the other day I couldn’t get organic and I tried just the normal one. And my throat burnt, even though I rinsed it so clearly. Because I do have a very sensitive system, so I’ve got to watch a lot. But all the herbs, particularly for me, basil, parsley, and coriander, and The Red Onion. So these are all really good course eating foods, but they help me with the histamine as well and then rheumatoid. Yeah.

Clint – So the more basil as the US says, parsley, coriander and broccolini, and organic kale that you eat, you feel that that really, really helps.

Amy – Really, really helps yes. Even to the point of what if I was just to eat raw by itself, my body would hurt a bit. So I always have the salad with it, but still finish with the salad. Then I get to the table and I’m in no pain. So why would I not do it in that order?

Clint – Completely understand. You get into these almost superstition situations where you just want to do the same thing every time because varying anything feels dangerous.

Amy – Oh yeah. And I’ve been there for so long, I don’t want to go back. Yeah. So at the moment, it still seems a bit like survival on the outside. But to me I’m like, Oh, God, I’m sorry. Safe. I’m happy, pain-free. On the program, I listen to a podcast one day and a lady was talking about fermenting oats. So I thought, I’ll just jump in and try the oats. I did get pain, but that was when I really started to understand the histamine that what my body is going through. Because with the fermented oats, my eczema got so bad that my hands actually look like they were third-degree burns because they’d split in so many places. I wasn’t sleeping, I’m just eating oats. And because I hadn’t figured out yet that I had a histamine intolerance all my life and no doctor had told me anything about it. They’ve just, so if you go to all asthma, you got eczema or you got acne, but no one ever discusses anything with you and I just thought that that was how it was. I just came across this histamine thing one day and I started to realize that fermented oats were part of the problem. So I took them out and I was still itchy. And spinach is a high histamine food, so I swapped the spinach for I think it was lettuce at the time, but then all of a sudden I felt really good in my skin and I’m like, Oh, okay, I’ve figured something out there. So it took a long time because I just didn’t trust my body and I was so scared and I had no idea why. Your programs worked for so many people why couldn’t I just make it make me feel that good? And I had to learn these things very slowly, sometimes very harshly. And I learnt my lesson over time.

Clint – When I was putting together this part of my book, which I flicked across now onto my screen and looking at my book draft and I’m talking about the new book, not the Paddison Program. I had a microbiome researcher look into the literature on this, so I tried to, throughout this book, go to the medical literature and find out what does it say, what’s actually going on in the science. And his summary on this from the science is it appears that the gut microbiome may be the single biggest variable determining whether one responds adversely to histamine-containing foods. This has been identified with regards to specific gut organisms, while many people with R.A. may choose to avoid histamine-containing foods. I feel that this is misguided and counterproductive. Fermented and fermentable foods contribute to a healthy microbiome. Intolerance of these indicates the microbiome is dis biotic, and the best course of action would be to work on addressing the dysbiosis, not eliminating the trigger. It all comes down to the gut. So we know that histamine intolerance is obviously a gut dysbiosis situation. We spoke right at the start of our conversation. All the things that happened in your past about creating dysbiosis, all the antibiotics, no breast milk and so on. It’s no secret that all of us with rheumatoid arthritis, when we develop our RA, we have dysbiosis. I spoke about this on our live calls with Dr. Chris Miller as well, lupus recovery. And she talked about how fermented foods for her also would really stir her up.

Amy – That podcast was another big lightbulb moment for me, which we’ll go into. Sorry.

Clint – Right? Oh, no, not sorry. I jump in at any time. And so. I would do exactly as you’re doing, I wouldn’t eat fermented foods either. But the reason for just sort of making some of these comments is for 95 or maybe even greater percentage of the people following this path, they may not have the histamine intolerance and may not need to be concerned with this discussion. But all of us can take on board from this everyone that all of us are so unique and individual. And if something, even though it’s worked for others, like the spinach or the quinoa or whatever it might be, if those things trigger in us, get the thing out of the diet, just get it out. There are other things that we can eat. And if the rice, for example, increases inflammation a little more, then exercise it away or increase the dose of the Plaquenil, for example, or whatever it might be. But let’s avoid known food triggers if they’re there. So thank you for letting me share that little bit. It’s fascinating how our bodies are unique and we need to be very careful to pay attention to those big alarms that are going off when we’re eating those things.

Amy – Yeah. In a sense, not be so fearful, but just try and understand the science and mechanisms behind it to try and figure it out to. Think logically, not can’t go with your heart with a lot of this stuff you need to. Work it out, map it out and use whatever resource you can. But onto Dr. Chris Miller. Was that her name?

Clint – Yeah.

Amy – I had trialed probiotics because, I mean, I read all your stuff and I listen to your podcast, and every probiotic I would react to. And you did that podcast with her not so long ago. And I’m going to give this another try because that particular I’ve forgotten. But I had my son on that particular probiotic she recommends to start with the SB five B strain, and it worked really well for him. And I’m like, I’m going to give this another go. And by this stage, I’d already started supplementing with magnesium and I was a lot calmer and I didn’t react with the probiotics. So I have that twice a day now. And it’s really good. In fact, it actually helped me get out of a bit of a pickle. I read somewhere about how the herb thyme helps is a good anti-inflammatory herb, and so I put that on my salad. I also forgot about once upon a time because it’s been like three years. So you do forget what you have and haven’t done. When I first got my GI map test done, it came back with the bad bacteria that I had high levels of sitro bacteria.

Clint – Okay.

Amy – Is that. Is that how you pronounce it?

Clint – I don’t. I can’t say that I remember that one in particular.

Amy – Okay. Well, I had high levels of that. And I remember back then the research has said to take oregano in time. So I put that on my salad and I burnt back then, but I forgot that this happened. So then recently I put thyme on my salad for the anti-inflammatory properties, and then I burnt again and it all. Then I started to remember what had happened originally so clearly like the thyme upset that bad bacteria, that’s why I get a bad reaction. And then I remember you saying it’s always best to go with building the good bacteria versus trying to get rid of your bad bacteria because that’s where it can hit. So I used your process and I thought, well, I’ll just take another probiotic because that will help influence the bit of bacteria again. And within 30 minutes, the total body burn and gone. Oh, thank God. But I had to think quick.

Clint – You really do. You’re very sensitive, aren’t you?

Amy – Very sensitive. Like you see on the news, there are those people with those anaphylactic reactions and they can’t figure out what’s happening. If I hadn’t got rheumatoid and learnt a lot of valuable lessons, that would have been me. Like my system is hypersensitive and I’m doing a lot of things now to work on that because it’s not just that I got reactions to histamine. It’s everything that I have in my brain I’ve always been so scared, always. And you can’t be telling a body that for nearly 34 years and not have it feel like it’s running to survival. You can’t be giving a body that message for all that time.

Clint – Oh, Amy, we’ve just uncovered another layer, haven’t we? It seems.

Amy – Yeah.

Clint – I’m no psychologist, but it does appear, from what you’ve just said, that your body may be hyper, hypersensitive because of this mental, repeated affirmation of I’m scared, I’m scared. I’m scared of the food or I’m scared of something. Something is really, really made you on high alert and your body not responding like that and being triggered by all sorts of otherwise fairly subtle processes. And it’s made everything so much harder for you.

Amy – I did also want to mention that for three years I did try to medicate. So I was on the Plaquenil that did nothing. So then we introduced methotrexate and that was for the tablet first starting at 10 milligrams. But all that happened was I’d feel worse particularly the day after taking it I’d feel worse, I never got any pain relief. Then we went to injections and I went up to 25 milligrams and it did nothing but just make me feel worse.

Clint – Wow. Okay, then what else did you try?

Amy – So my wrists, there was so many bad spots in my wrist, they didn’t know where to put the steroid because it was all so under the skin was also bad. And I mean, they would be trying to put the steroid in and I couldn’t even get my wrist into the position where they needed it because I would sort of need it bent a bit. To maneuver my risk to do it because it was really I had bulges out here and I had a bulge out this side and this particular wrist had three steroid injections and they were delivered with the anesthetic as well. Didn’t do a single thing to that wrist. This medication, just no medication is worked. So after that. I thought I’ve got to do something here because like. This thing is just running rampant and it’s deforming my joints in no time at all so I commenced biologics. I went on cimzia but I got a really bad rash, I was at 12 weeks. I contacted the rheumatologist and she said, Go for a week and see what happens. The rest went away, and then I moved state. We were in Queensland and we moved down to Bendigo and I had to find a new rheumatologist. And you ring around and it’s hard to get a rheumatologist appointment, I couldn’t sort of get anywhere for another 6 months. Well, no one can help me for six months. I’m not going on steroid tablets or anything like that. And I’d already figured out the Ross thing. So I’m like, I’ll just eat more leafy greens. And I just stick with that meal, really. I call it my carrot juice, I have apple, carrot and ginger. I can’t have the celery juice because of the high oxalate, I get really itchy. So I cut that out and I found for me, as long as I’m hydrated and got the leafy greens. I’m quite alkaline, so it’s good.

Clint – That’s interesting as well. You’ve dropped another sensitive topic there with the word oxalate, people get very excited about oxalate. As I flicked back to my book again and I want you to keep talking and not me, just so you know, I hired a different medical researcher who went through PubMed, Scopus, Embase, and Google Scholar with oxalate and rheumatoid arthritis. There is no related, direct or causal relationship between RA and oxalate in the literature whatsoever. So that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It means that it’s certainly not a prevalent thing for people with rheumatoid arthritis, kidney stones as well that we can feel comfortable with that. And the reason I went to the science on this is because one of the big guidelines around the minimisation of kidney stones is the number one is to increase fluid intake because oxalate exit the body through urine. So if you’ve found that drinking more water helps with what may be an oxalate or just an overall inflammatory issue, it could just be that it’s because oxalate is are being peed out.

Amy – Maybe. But like, even only a couple of months ago, I had an (inaudible), and in the morning, like, I couldn’t even apply the lipstick to my lips because they get, like bubbly like the burnt. So I’ve just got a very hyper system and instead of feeling like that’s a negative, I’m just going to work with that because I’ve finally come out of this big bad cloud and I’m okay and my body’s got to learn that that’s what it is.

Clint – It is. And I feel that if you avoid these triggers long enough, they may subside and you may find that something that was triggering you a lot in the past may not in a year from now. That’s my expectation.

Amy – That is mine too and especially now I know I’ve been jumping in and trying and settling it down a bit. But if anyone out there is hyper sensitive, I would urge you to try the magnesium because for me it’s been the golden answer to many different mechanisms that’s helped me on board many different supplements to then keep being calm and happy in my body. If you have a histamine intolerance issue, there’s Magnesium out there that’s fermented so you’ve got to be careful. The magnesium I take is Magnesium L Threonate. And it’s specifically marketed for cognitive function. So I take one in the morning, maybe one in the afternoon, and the standard dose is three before like 2 hours before you go to bed. And I never used to realize that I never used to sleep. Like again, there’s another pebble in the works of why my body is so disruptive, because if you’re not sleeping, you’re not restoring. And now I get to sleep at night, and it’s just heaven on earth.

Clint – Wow.

Amy – That would be the biggest thing.

Clint – Now, I’ve had others cite their perceived improvement by taking magnesium, this isn’t the first time this has sort of come up. I haven’t done any research on it other than what I can draw upon Literature Review From years ago when I was obsessed about potassium, I used to take tons of potassium. Because I went through phases where it was all about enzymes and raw foods. Then I went through a phase where I was all about alkalinity. We know from medical studies that people with rheumatoid arthritis when they take A Potassium on its own or in a different study, B just a mixture of alkalising minerals. Both studies show a significant improvement in symptoms for people with rheumatoid, so I’ve thought, okay, it is the alkalinity. I’m drawing a fairly long bow here back to magnesium, but potassium and magnesium work together in the body. So I used to supplement magnesium as well and therefore there were bottles and bottles coming through my house or apartment back in the day over the years with magnesium and I would supplementing it too. Never had any concerns, but that was the extent of my magnesium sort of exposure. But then, as I said, over the last 12 months, we’ve got members in our support group who are talking about using magnesium, including Caroline. If you’re watching this, she watches all our podcasts and is a crucial member of our forum. She recently started taking magnesium and felt better for it. Now she feels fantastic, she’s like a really, like, elite Paddison programmer. And she just found that little adjustment for her was one that made a difference. So I think there’s something in it.

Amy – And, like, if I ever wanted a treat, even something like a water bass sorbet would set off my symptoms because of the sugar still in it that would set off histamine issues. And I was trying this dear supplement, which is meant to be out to reduce the amount of histamines so therefore ideally you don’t get a reaction. But even at three tablets, I was still getting reactions. And then the other day I remembered I do use this one website, and anyone that’s hypersensitive needs to go to Marcel360 because it’s really cheap. Her name is Beth O’Hara, she’s a functional naturopath over in America, I would love to be able to consult with her, but she doesn’t do international clients. She’s who’s got me out of this bad reaction road. She’s who got me on to just buy her information on the website telling me about magnesium and things like that. So also that the enzyme you need to break down histamine is DAO. What helps produce that is to have enough magnesium in your system. Hence why I was getting all these reactions because my magnesium wasn’t adequate to be able to produce it because my guts are so bad in leaky gut terms. So anyway, I went and tried sorbet, I tried it with one DAO supplement and one magnesium supplement, and I did not even get a twinge. Gone from not being out of sleep to nights from a sorbet originally to I don’t get any symptoms. It just didn’t happen.

Clint – Hmm. Given that magnesium in particular is very affordable. What’s the other supplement? DAO.

Amy – The magnesium that I take is actually pretty expensive, but it’s the only one that’s effective, so I’m sticking with it. The DAO supplement runs I think it’s about 60 per bottle, I think, and it’s around about $110.

Clint – And that’s Australian dollars. So it’s probably that equates to about say $65 USD.

Amy – Yeah. And it does have to come from America. Well, the one that I took in.

Clint – Okay. All right. Well, there are some good sort of resources there for people if they want to explore this avenue. And it sounds like the risk are very low to to explore. Yeah. Okay. Well, this is interesting. What else have you got for us, Amy? On our list here, I was going to be asking you about detox methods, where we’re coming up to the hour. We’ve got we’re doing a lot of chatting here. Those supplements are interesting. Let’s talk about overcoming eczema and hay fever, asthma, anxiety, and brain fog. What have you got for us in that department?

Amy – So once I cut out the things like fermented foods, spinach, the high histamine foods my asthma went away. It wasn’t even gradual, it just stopped.

Clint – Now, how long had you had Asthma?

Amy – Oh, my life, and it’s been bad all my life.

Clint – Okay. I’m just letting that sink in for my own benefit and also for other people. See, you’ve had asthma your whole life. You’re taking one of those little what we used to have call them at school puffers, like a little sort of inhaler.

Amy – Yeah, even though I was on steroids, I would still take 6 to 8 goes of the reliever a day. Really bad.

Clint – Now you have no asthma symptoms.

Amy – I go for a run around the lake, even in the cold morning. I don’t even take any reliever at all. The only time I have is when I got the flu really, really, really badly. I don’t even think I had asthma, but I took it out of reflex of, Oh, I feel like I can’t breathe so I took that. But yeah, but nearly 33 sort of not had asthma for a couple of years now. So yeah, 32 years really bad.

Clint – But what’s your commentary on that? I mean, how does that make you feel to know that this whole time there were dietary reasons?

Amy – It makes me really angry because no one ever told my mom or nothing that there was another solution. And you stuck with this body that has all these bad reactions, that’s just how it is. And that’s just not the case.

Clint – You’re not the first person who’s told me that they have eliminated their asthma symptoms as being part of our community. However, I think that you are the longest asthmatic who’s completely gotten rid of symptoms. Also since I didn’t even know that like we’re kind of chatting about other things here and it’s not something that I knew and to just get rid of asthma like that in a relatively short period of time.

Amy – It’s it’s such a funny thing because for something that ruled my life, all my life, and now I don’t even need to give it a single thought, it’s kind of comical. It’s like, well, it’s weird.

Clint – It is funny, isn’t it?

Amy – Yeah, a lot went off and it’s just no longer there.

Clint – Oh, my gosh. So you’ve got no asthma, you’re on no medications for rheumatoid arthritis whatsoever, you’ve got no pain for rheumatoid arthritis.

Amy – If I do get pain, it’s in my collarbone, and thanks to you, I know to go hang out on my pull-up bar. I also have a long, really long foam roller, and I lay on that and I just stretch my elbows out to 90 and just let all the muscles and ligaments and everything relax. And if it’s really bad, I’ll go to bed with a sore shoulder but by the morning it’s gone. That’s the only pain I get intermittently. I always had steroids for my cream, for my eczema, I don’t have anything. I never used to be able to wear my wrinkles because the eczema was so bad. I mean, I can even use soapy water now, and I just don’t react the same way that I was. Everything’s just calm and settled now.

Clint – Hmm. Oh, Amy, you’re a gem. Okay, let’s. Let’s go through the last things on our list here. Detoxification methods, sauna is listed. Can you tell us about your experience with that?

Amy – Well, originally I went in too hard and too fast with the sauna. I used it every night, I didn’t wash off my makeup, my acne got worse, mmy anxiety got worse. And I back then, I had no idea why, because I’ve had this one for a couple of years now, and I just Yeah, didn’t make sense of any of it. And then it wasn’t till recently I remembered, Well, if I’m doing a sauna, I’m detoxing. So that would get rid of all my magnesium, I’ve just gone on with my supplements. So what I might make sure I do now is I have an Epsom salt bath, so that’s just magnesium sulfate. I have a bath and then I just make sure I take my magnesium. Around that too, I did want to mention the skincare routine I do because I found my skin got really dry from the sauna. So I cleanse, I put this hyaluronic serum on and that just really absorbs and holds a nice amount of water in your skin, and then I moisturize on top of it. And then when I get out a rinse and do it all again. Just be aware that the sauna is detoxing everything and it can dry you out. So make sure to drink enough water, Hagel fundamental things like your magnesium and good skincare routine.

Clint – You mentioned magnesium and have you tried coconut water and given that it has sugar content. I’m wondering whether or not it makes you have a positive impact or a negative impact.

Amy – It was quite a while ago now that our child, a lot has changed since then. But when I did, I did react to it. I don’t know about now.

Clint – There might be something to look at in the future. Where I position coconut water is a reward drink. So water’s best most of the time. Celery cucumber for most people is even better because it’s just water plus alkaline and minerals and some phytonutrients and so on, but it’s pretty much just water and nutrients. And then coconut water because of a little bit of sugar in there. It’s got no probably very little fiber. You just you’re drinking a bit of sugary water with some electrolytes. If you’ve just exercised, you’re going to burn that up in a second and you’re going to benefit. But if you’re sitting around on the couch, maybe not so much so. So depends.

Amy – Yeah. Keep it in mind, definitely I will. On that. Sorry I got off topic that the oxalate, just be aware with the Epsom salts that the specific detoxifying mechanism there is to purge your oxalate. So if anyone is sensitive to them, what they’re going to find is if they have too much Epsom salts in the bath it will draw them the oxalate out, and all of a sudden you’ll be really itchy. Which is what I did, was I started off with a cup and I was beyond itchy. So just start off with a teaspoon, that’s another thing that I found out from Marcel360. Start off with a teaspoon and work your way up because you’ve got to be gentle in detoxifying too. It’s not about hard and fast.

Clint – Hmm. I like that. Okay. Sounds good. My kids love the Epsom salt baths. I was doing it sometimes.

Amy – Mine too.

Clint – Yeah. They love the texture of how it feels in the bath and how.

Amy – Like it the beach.

Clint – Yeah, yeah. And how it dissolves that fascinates them after maybe a minute or two, it all dissolves and they just find that intriguing. So yeah, it’s a fun thing that the kids get involved with.

Amy – It is.

Clint – Talk about calming methods because, we’ve touched upon before the self-talk that you’ve probably been challenged with over the years.

Amy – Yes.

Clint – What do you do to calm that down?

Amy – So I do a lot of work with Dr. Joe Dispenser. I do a lot of Lucky’s You Tube guided meditations. I’ve read a lot of these books. It’s taken me a long time to realise the program that’s in here. And also through Marcel360, she advises the Gupta program, so I’m a member of that now. That is quite a bit of money, but for me, that’s where my priority is, I know I need to settle down and reprogram my thoughts and my body so it can feel calmer. So those are the 3 things I do. And basically it’s a lot of meditation and it’s a lot of interrupting the old thought automatic processes to purposely stopping and putting a new one in. And so all day long, that’s what I’ll do.

Clint – Can you give us a simple example?

Amy – Yeah. So say if say if I drop my water bottle, my instant reaction would be I would get annoyed and be like, Oh, you stupid. But with the program, I don’t want to give too much away because I want to respect his business. But it’s a series of steps where I literally am telling myself, stop, stop, stop, and then I work through the new thought that I want to produce from that. And it’s exhausting a lot of the time because for 34 years I’ve just been automatically this way and now I’ve got to override so much that’s in here. But every day I do a slightly better job, slightly and. I’m having many, many, many more better days than hell days. So it’s all and this is only a couple of months stuff, so I’m sure in a year’s time I’ll be a whole new person.

Clint – Well, it sounds like you’ve already made so many massive changes with the dietary side of things. You bought the elliptical, you’re doing that every day. And then you’ve made all of your discoveries with the with to adjust for your sensitivities. Your eczema is gone, your asthma is gone, your pain’s gone. I mean, the transformation in you in the last three years, I mean, is unbelievable for someone. One of your friends, I’m sure, if you haven’t seen them for 12 months and they catch up, hey Amy, where do you start? I mean, this is nuts. Yes, you must certainly be come across as a very interesting part of your social network. People must be like, What’s Amy at at the moment?

Amy – Yeah, I must admit a lot behind closed doors because I was so emotional and life is so hard for so long that not many people know other than my family. Another thing that to more supplements, I just want to check in because I know we’re getting a bit time consuming, but I can’t have vitamin C because of the citrus, I react. So I take camu powder and one teaspoon of that is equivalent to ten oranges. But I take the bottom and say, not only is it just a really good thing to have on board, but it’s also that helps the body make that DAO enzyme. So that’s why it works. Now that I’ve got stuff on board, I might be able to introduce things slowly soon.

Clint – I don’t know about the Camu powder. I’ll have to look that up. How do you spell that?

Amy – Yeah, it’s another thing. Marcel360, made me aware of, and it’s really good. Yeah. And then I also take the 10,000 IU for vitamin D.

Clint – Beautiful, I take it 10,000 as well. I don’t take it every day because my levels just go sky rocket.

Amy – Oh right. Yeah. I take mine daily particularly because you can see that I’m on such a small amount of foods, I can’t build it up with food. So I’ve got to supplement the fundamentals, but I’ve I’ve tried it with or without the vitamin D, and I’m much better with the vitamin D.

Clint – Hmm. Interesting. Yeah, I certainly like my D as well. I sleep like a baby. I have the most intense dreams when I take it. Just gets me into really sort of deep, deep sleep. Okay. Where are we up to now? We’ve got bringing forward the future you that you want to be into the present is a note that I’ve made.

Amy – Yeah. So that comes down to the programming again, stopping myself as I can feel myself getting carried away. Getting into the headspace of this beautiful person that I want to be and work from that and then doing the meditations as well.

Clint – Okay. So that’s tied into the Gupta program and some of the other meditation work that you’re doing.

Amy – Yeah.

Clint – Okay. And then attitude. Don’t come at it with fear. Let’s talk about that.

Amy – Well, firstly, you need a bit of insurance up your sleeve. And I was always so fearful of trying things because my reactions were so bad and would be for so long that I was petrified of trying something. And again, through Marcel360 she had a cheat sheet, not a cheat sheet, but just a troubleshoot cheat if you have a reaction. And on that sheet particularly for histamine reactions to reset your body. If I got a reaction now, I would take a quarter of a teaspoon of bicarb soda and a little shot of water. And it is the most effective thing you can ever have. I used to take telfast and antihistamines daily, and they did nothing for me. But I would take them out of fear because I didn’t know how bad else it would be. And this by card in 15, not even 10 minutes, your body is reset you don’t even have a reaction. You can go from asthma attack to itchy to instant calm, it is so good to have up your sleeve. So work with that and. Once I had that moment, I realized I had the fear gone. The actual real fear is gone because I can control the reaction. And now I’ve just got to. Go to the science and research it and figure it out and remember what mechanisms I’m working with and think analytically. Don’t think Psychologically into to the emotional state you could be in, because that’s the whole program that I got caught up in. And then you’re almost reacting before you’ve even touched anything because you got carried away. So we’ve got to let the words on the paper and the science and the people who have done all this beautiful research and trials, we’ve got to work with that.

Clint – I like that. And it’s coming up time and time again. I hear the word, you know, fear. And if we were part of the in-person event or something, I would have everyone come and give you the biggest cuddle and just tell you everything’s okay. You’ve done amazing the fear you can let go of and the fear is behind you. And whatever caused a lot of this fear in your infancy and upbringing, probably health related triggers and so on.

Amy – Exactly.

Clint – You’re now on the other side of the hump and everything now is going to be okay, life is different now. And these sort of affirmations I’d be placing into my my brain too because that’s the truth. That is the truth.

Amy – It is the truth. Yeah. And I believe that now and I sit in my meditations and I just cry because I’m, I’m like close to that person in my future. All of a sudden it feels I’m okay. And to cry through happiness is just glorious compared to cry through hell, you know?

Clint – Absolutely.

An amazing life, you just got to keep fighting for you. Don’t let people tell you this is how you are. No, that’s not the case.

Clint – It certainly isn’t. It certainly isn’t. So let’s wrap up now. I’ve gone into darkness here. I’m just a float in the darkness the sun has set. It’s a grey day outside and the late afternoon is turning into night. So for those people watching, I’ve turned up my screen brightness to maximum so that you can still see some part of me. And then let’s talk about exercise and then sleep and then we’ll wrap it up.

Amy – So the exercise offender wasn’t doing it because I couldn’t be bothered getting changed. To me, it didn’t seem like it really did help a lot of inflammation. But stick with it because it really does. Because now, so when I get off this podcast, I’ll go and do a workout in these clothes because otherwise I won’t do it because then I’ve got to cook dinner and organise the kids and it just doesn’t happen. But lately I’ve been getting like a burn in my spine which from the day I was diagnosed as being a lot of pressure in my spine, but obviously it’s just settled in that area now and there’s a dull burn. And I notice as soon as I start to sweat, as soon as I start to get that heat, that spine burn just goes. It’s like a magic. I wouldn’t say killed because that’s all gone. Now that none of that works, it’s just the best therapy. So it’s got to be enough to sweat, though, like you’ve always said time and time again.

Clint – How wonderful that you’ve also found that out for yourself. And so I love that you just work out in the clothes that you’ve got on so that you’ve eliminated every possible excuse. Just get in there and do it right.

Amy – Less washing. You fitted only one load then with the whole family’s washing, you’ve got to just keep tweaking. And was it this like did you say yes?

Clint – Sleep you’ve mentioned has improved a lot, but any more tips in that area?

Amy – Yeah, I’m very sensitive, obviously, in a lot of different areas. So even like my husband’s sleeping and breathing and him moving or making noise wakes me up. I’ve always been on Hyper alert. So I actually found this company and they called ear loops or something. And so they just like an ear plug, but they’re comfortable, they sit in your ear. They don’t hurt to sleep on or anything like that. So I use that and that really helps stop. I don’t wake up frequently because I’m not startled by noise. Another thing is the magnesium L threonate. I take three before 2 hours before bed. And turn off your screens a little bit before bed, just let your body calm down a bit. And also direct sunlight, exposure in the eyes as well. Like, say, go outside and take your glasses off because that helps the melatonin levels in your body. And that’s something that’s really helped me as well.

Clint – Yeah. First thing in the morning is best for that, isn’t it.

Amy – Yeah.

Clint – As soon as you wake up, we want to get the blue light, the morning light into our eyes. And that sets our circadian rhythm.

Amy – Yeah. And that’s the safest time to get the sun, they say as well.

Clint – So yeah, UV levels are low, but we’ve got visible light and we also have near infrared radiation at fairly high levels, which is the one that if we’re not looking through a glass pane but actually out in it is really beneficial for as you melatonin. Well, thank you very, very much, Amy. I feel like I’ve really gotten to know you in this discussion.

Amy – Thank you.

Clint – I feel like I’ve seen a very, very behind the scenes, almost personal and very revealing account of your life. You’ve been very transparent and vulnerable in sharing some of these things that haven’t come up in a lot of our other discussions. As you say, a lot of people come on here and they’re like, I did your program, I feel tremendous. Yay, high five through the screen. Yours has been one more of deep modifications and explorations and many things that you’ve uncovered through your own frustrations and own sort of perseverance. So well done, fantastic discovery work, and it’s wonderful to to hear how well you’re doing. It’s just sensational. Congratulations.

Amy – Thank you, Clint. You’re a big part of it. So thank you so much.